<<September 24, 2005>>
Archived distributions can be retrieved at;
<http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Global_University/Global%20University%20System/List%20Distributions/Archives_from_041505.html>,
or
<http://makeashorterlink.com/?Q1A5226EA>
This archive includes a html version of this
list distribution and its MS/WORD version with its filename as
Òmonth-date-year.doc.Ó You can also access all of its attachments, if
any.
Prof. Stuart A. Umpleby <umpleby@gwu.edu>
Jeffrey Levett <jelevett@otenet.gr>
Dear Stuart:
(1) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT I).
(2) Attached to this msg is a file (GEL+GP_v3.doc) of my following paper;
Global
e-Learning for Global Peace
http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Global_University/Global%20University%20System/List%20Distributions/2005/MTI1697_09-24-05/GEL+GP_v3%20copy.htm
Or
http://makeashorterlink.com/?F44621BDB
This is for my opening speech at your conference of the American Society for
Cybernetics to be held in Washington, DC, from 27th to 30th of this coming
October <http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/2005/index.htm>.
(3) You can find the pdf files of my slide presentation at the archive of this
list distribution at the URL listed at the top of this msg — they are 1.7
MB each so that I refrained to attach them to this distribution;
(a)
ASC_conf_v1-092305_with_note.pdf,
(b) ASC_conf_v1-092305_without_note.pdf
(4) I hope these are satisfactory with you.
See you soon at the conference.
Dear Prof. Levett:
(5) Many thanks for your msg (ATTACHMENT II) and very interesting attachment
on;
European
Center for Peace and Development (ECPD)
International Symposium
NATIONAL
AND INTER-ETHNIC RECONCILIATION AND RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE IN THE
WESTERN BALKANS
Belgrade, 28-29
October, 2005
I took the liberty of attaching it to this list distribution.
BTW, I also took the liberty of admitting you into our
list so that you will be kept updated with our daily progress. Pls enjoy
reading it.
(6) I read both with great interest.
You may be interested in reading the following paper;
Martti
Ahtisaari, President of Finland and Laureate of Fulbright Prize
"The 2000 Fulbright Prize Address"
http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Global_University/Global%20University%20System/UNESCO_Chair_Book/Manuscripts/Part_I_Greetings/Ahtisaari,%20Martti/Ahtisaari_web/AhtisaariD6.htm
Or
http://makeashorterlink.com/?G54825BDB
As you see in it, he talked about his experience of conflict resolution in
Kosovo and about the future prospects of the Balkan region.
(7) This paper is the first chapter of our following book;
Global
Peace Through The Global University System
Tapio Varis -
Takeshi Utsumi - William Klemm (Eds.)
University of Tampere, Finland 2003
ISBN 951-44-5695-5
The entire contents of this book can be retrieved at;
http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/Global_University/Global%20University%20System/UNESCO_Chair_Book/Bk_outline-D13.html
Or
http://makeashorterlink.com/?M2D252E09
In the bottom line of this page, you can find the
following;
ÒInterview with Takeshi UtsumiÓ by Parker Rossman
(8) Incidentally, Tapio Varis is the Acting President of our Global University
System who is the former rector of the United Nations University for Peace to
which your ECPD affiliates.
(9) Referring to your para on the Nobert WienerÕs concept of feedback, you may
be interested in viewing the slides of my presentation at the ASC conference
mentioned in the Item (2) above.
After learning about System Dynamics from Prof. Jay W. Forrester at M.I.T.
almost 40 years ago, I was hooked with its methodology (which is the extension
of Nobert WienersÕ Cybernetics theory), and my life-long project is to
proliferate it with our Globally Collaborative Environmental Peace Gaming
project, as described in my paper mentioned in the Item (2) above.
(10) Are you coming to attend StuartÕs conference in DC next month? If
so, I would very much like to meet with you to chat.
Keep in touch.
Best, Tak
ATTACHMENT
I
From:
Stuart Umpleby
<umpleby@gmail.com>
Reply-To: <umpleby@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 19
Sep 2005 10:32:24 -0400
To: Arun
Chandra <arunc@evergreen.edu>, Mark Enslin <enslin@prairienet.org>,
Joan Lartin-Drake <jlartin@kuhncom.net>, Andrea Maloney-Schara
<arms711@aol.com>, Jeff Long <JeffLong@aol.com>, Albert Mueller
<albert.mueller@univie.ac.at>, Alex Riegler <ariegler@vub.ac.be>,
Russell Ackoff <rlackoff@aol.com>, Takeshi Utsumi
<utsumi@columbia.edu>, Mary Catherine Bateson
<mcatb@attglobal.net>, Robert Artigiani <artigian@usna.edu>, Eric
Dent <eric.dent@uncp.edu>, Dewey Dykstra <ddykstra@mac.com>,
"Hector_Sabelli@rush.edu" <Hector_Sabelli@rush.edu>, Frank
Anbari <anbarif@gwu.edu>, Urban Kordes <urban.kordes@ijs.si>, Vikas
Sahasrabudhe <svikas@gwu.edu>, Andy Hilgartner <cah5@hilgart.org>,
John Pourdehnad <jp2consult@aol.com>, Julius Genakowsky
<jg@iac.com>, Paul Stokes <pstokes@indigo.ie>, Joe Truss
<jtruss@syntegrity.com>, Chris Cullen <ccullen@syntegrity.com>,
"LowellChristy@cs.com" <LowellChristy@cs.com>, Raj Kanungo
<kanungo@gwu.edu>, Karl Mueller <mueller@wisdom.at>
Cc: "ASC-EXEC@yahoogroups.com"
<ASC-EXEC@yahoogroups.com>
Subject: papers
for ASC conf.
Papers
for the ASC conf. are not required but are encouraged. Please send us a copy of
your paper or your powerpoint slides by Sept. 25. We shall make a paper
copy of the program and abstracts and a CD with all materials including papers
or slides. For formatting instructions see the website, www.asc-cybernetics.org/2005
<http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/2005>
.
--
Stuart Umpleby, Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning
Monroe Hall 403, The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052
www.gwu.edu/~umpleby <http://www.gwu.edu/~umpleby>
, tel. 202-994-1642, fax 202-994-4930
ATTACHMENT
II
> From: "Dr J. Levett" <jelevett@otenet.gr>
> Date: Mon, 5 Sep 2005 10:07:22 +0300
> To: <utsumi@columbia.edu>
> Subject: something of interest perhaps
>
> Greetings from Greece.
>
> 1. Info enclosed on a reconciliation in the Balkans conference sponsored
by
> the Japanese Fund and
> 2. NY Review of Books (2005) Comment on Freeman Dyson's review of Dark
Hero
> of the Information Age: In Search of Norbert Wiener, the Father of
> Cybernetics, by Flo Conway and Jim Seigelman.
>
> In his development of modern cybernetics Norbert Wiener (NW) takes a
> preeminent place in the history of ideas and technological progress along
> side Ampere (cybernetique, a word which entered and then was dropped from
> Larousse), Claude Bernard (constancy of the internal milieu and would be
> playwright) and reiterated by Cannon (homeostasis), Maxwell (mathematical
> analysis of the Watt steam governor) and Black (electrical feedback
> amplifiers). In the 19th Century Du Maurier defined feedback as "the
more
> one smokes, the more miserable one becomes. The more miserable one is, the
> more one smokes. A vicious cycle."
>
> In his thoughtful review of Dark Hero of the Information Age: In Search of
> Norbert Wiener, the Father of Cybernetics, by Flo Conway and Jim Seigelman
> Freeman Dyson (FD) makes clear, much of the work of NW. The ideas he put
> forward and the resulting technologies that have emerged have influenced
our
> world. At about the time of his somewhat untimely death (1964), I was
giving
> an adult education course on Cybernetics (American Academy, Athens,
Greece).
> A short while later I met his erstwhile friend and colleague, the
impressive
> and imposing Warren S. McCullough (WM) a man equally at ease in discussing
> theology and Greek philosophy as he was with systems physiology and
> artificial neurons. Dyson provides insights into the unfortunate
rift
> between Mr. Cybernetics and WM (1951) as well as Wiener's troubled
> domesticity. FD sheds light on NW's mental state, which can be compatible
> with genius. Periodically, he went through a self-described pessimistic
> tailspin, which draw attention to the growing global problem of mental
> health as well as blind spots in human rationality. Did the rift set back
> the developing interface between the physical and biological sciences at
the
> level of neuro-physiology is an interesting question? In the reviewer's
> words, did this forestall a foray into biology and the hope for a uniform
> field theory with cybernetics? On a nostalgic note, FD notes the demise of
> the analogue computer, which partially modeled the behavior of reality in
a
> continuous fashion against the more accurate, faster and cheaper digital
> computer, operating on a basis of binary logic.
>
> A decade and a half after the rift (1966), I was introduced to WM by Earl
> Gose (pattern recognition expert) a "second generation boy",
while another,
> Lawrence Stark, an eminent biological controls scientist gave me the
> opportunity to study biomedical engineering and physiology in Chicago
(Rush
> Presbyterian St Luke's Medical Center, Chicago-Rush, University of
Illinois
> at the Medical Center and University of Illinois at Chicago Circle). The
NIH
> funded doctoral program directed by Stark, before he left for Berkeley,
> reflected many of NW's ideas and the interface implicit in the original
> NW-WM link. Stark was an avid reader of Cavafy and I remember him training
a
> pin of light on the border of the pupil causing it to demonstrate a
hunting
> oscillation as a result of internal feedback mechanisms. As the light to
the
> retina increases, the pupil constricts, as it decreases, it dilates. By
the
> same token if water had a soul, it would also fluctuate between liquid and
> gas at some very high temperature, "hunting" between two states
(See FD,
> NYRB November 6, 2003).
>
> Anecdotally: a report by NW on his wartime work was referred to as the
> "yellow peril" because of its yellow covers and difficult
mathematics; WM
> was casually described on occasion as the world's greatest organizer,
> political scientist and scientific promoter but its worst physiologist.
> Jerome Lettvin (one of "the boys") was interested in the color
compositions
> of Carravaggio and had several "tales" attached to him, such as
"a liver for
> Jerry", a present from the Chicago underworld, when in a Taylor
Street bar
> he had supposedly complained of not being able to get experimental
> biological samples; the eccentric and brilliant Pitts (Pitts-MacCullough
> Neuron) would sit on a high table and proceed one by one to pull out hairs
> from his scalp; impressed by the Lissajous figures created by juxtaposed
> variable sine waves, on Stark's Oscilloscope at MIT, the President of Rush
> invited him to Chicago. Lettvin demonstrated the neural activity of the
> stereotypic "bug detector" and what the frogs' eye tells the
frog's brain
> (optic tectum) opening up the area of motion and pattern recognition by
the
> brain, which lead to a Nobel Prize (Hubel and Wiesel). Stark contributed
to
> neural dynamics and our understanding of visual control functions. He was
a
> good fundraiser and promoter of such activities, based on the eye, as
> "window to the soul".
>
> Wiener was a creative rebel with multiple causes: understanding
complexity;
> keeping human beings human; fighting the potential for the
misappropriation
> of science; use of science to combat poverty. He was a man of principle
and
> made his stand. Like Aldous Huxley, he recommended that scientists boycott
> harmful work. He was knowledgeable about the East's "know-what"
but came
> from the West, which was more concerned with left brain function, the
> successful development of biomedical devices based on physical principles
> and "know-how". Russian interest was on the right brain, the
theoretical
> development of biologically based devices (bionics) and produced
> high-caliber vision electro-physiologists, like Byzov. In Russia,
> Cybernetics was first derided and then venerated.
>
> NW's concept of feedback, its ability to confer stability (negative
feedback
> / control loops) and provide insight into destabilization (positive
feedback
> / oscillators / ataxia) have found universal application in the physical,
> social, economic and biological sciences and laid the basis for
> communication technologies and the age of informatics. It is the basis of
> systems theory, which is applied in management and public policy analysis
> (good governance).
>
> FD is correct that we still have much to learn from Wiener, who today
would
> frown at some aspects of economic transition in Eastern countries (growing
> health disparities with Europe) and the trends in globalization (growing
> polarization). Putting words into his mouth, he would surely tell us that
> "know-how and efficiency are good but know-what and equity are
better".
>
> Jeffrey Levett
> Professor, National School of Public Health, Athens
>
> Tel 30 210 3642578 / 6433980
List
of Distribution
Prof. Stuart
A. Umpleby
Research Program in Social and Organizational Learning
School of Business
Monroe Hall 403
The George Washington University
2101 F Street NW, Suite 201
Washington, DC 20052, USA
Tel: (202) 994-1642
Fax: (202) 994-4930
fax 202-994-3081
umpleby@gwu.edu
http://www.gwu.edu/~umpleby
http://www.asc-cybernetics.org/2005/index.htm
Jeffrey Levett
Professor
National School of Public Health
Athens, Greece
Tel 30 210 3642578 / 6433980
jelevett@otenet.gr
**********************************************************************
* Takeshi Utsumi, Ph.D., P.E., Chairman, GLOSAS/USA
*
* (GLObal Systems Analysis and Simulation Association in the U.S.A.) *
* Laureate of Lord Perry Award for Excellence in Distance Education *
* Founder and V.P. for Technology and Coordination of
*
* Global University System (GUS)
*
* 43-23 Colden Street, Flushing, NY 11355-5913, U.S.A.
*
* Tel: 718-939-0928; Email: utsumi@columbia.edu
*
* http://www.friends-partners.org/GLOSAS/
*
* Tax Exempt ID: 11-2999676
*
**********************************************************************